


The Twelve Days (Or Is It Years?) Of Christmas

by MittenWraith



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birds, Bunker Fluff, Case Fic, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Nearly Human Castiel, Spells & Enchantments, because hey i usually write about bees so i figured we should mix it up a lil bit, sort of anyway since they're forced to do research
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8892661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenWraith/pseuds/MittenWraith
Summary: Mary came back to the bunker for Thanksgiving and decided she might be ready to stay, at least for a while. Before the last of the Thanksgiving pie was gone, Dean was already planning out the next family holiday on the calendar-- Mary's birthday. All she asked for was to spruce up the dusty old bunker for Christmas. Mary was still trying to puzzle out the strange and intense relationship Dean shared with Castiel, but when Eileen requested Sam's help on a hunt, Mary was happy enough to leave Dean and Cas in charge of Christmas decorations to spend some quality time with Sam. Or maybe she was just eager to meet his mysterious girlfriend. Unfortunately, Mary left them with a box full of holiday decorations she pulled out of one of the bunker's storerooms... because those sorts of things never caused anyone any trouble...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in an alternate s12 where Lucifer isn't an issue and Cas stayed at the bunker. Basically when Sam and Dean get themselves locked up in concrete boxes for the holidays, I'm inspired to write disgustingly fluffy fix-it fic with a freaking _vengeance._

It took Mary a while to find her way back to the bunker, but it inevitably happened the week of Thanksgiving. She’d called Sam first to ask if it would be weird for her to spend that particular holiday with them or not. Sam had laughed, partly with delight, and partly because he knew Dean planned on making several homemade pies for the occasion. He couldn’t wait to see the look on his mom’s face when she learned that-- despite living most of his life out of motels-- her oldest son had taught himself how to cook better than she ever did in her quiet suburban kitchen.

Sam assured her that Dean would be thrilled that she wanted to spend the holidays with them, but hesitated on pressuring her to make any definite plans beyond Thanksgiving. She sensed the concern in his voice, the unasked question, and tentatively asked if it might be okay for her to stay on through December, on a trial basis. When Sam sighed in relief, she believed they were all going to be okay, eventually.

She called Dean next, and after a difficult few minutes where tears threatened to spill over on both sides, they began working out the menu. Mary rattled off a list of the things she used to buy for Thanksgiving when Dean was little, while Dean surfed the internet for recipes and made his own shopping list. That done, they turned their attention to what Mary had referred to as their _guest list_.

“It’s just gonna be you, me, Sammy, and Cas,” Dean replied when Mary had inquired about inviting some of their hunter friends. “Jody and the girls are heading to Donna’s for the week… but you haven’t met Donna yet. Right. She’s another sheriff up in Minnesota we’ve worked with a few times.”

Mary made a thoughtful humming noise at that. “And you don’t have any other friends close enough to invite?”

Dean considered that for a minute. “We got friends, just not any that can drop everything and drive out to a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere for a long weekend. Garth’s got family obligations. Last I heard Eileen was working a lead up in Washington state and won’t be back until the first of December or so.”

He paused for a minute realizing he’d pretty much run through his list of hunting friends, and wasn’t sure if the rest of their acquaintances were really the bring ‘em home for the holidays sort.

“It’s probably best not to invite reapers to Thanksgiving dinner, and the rest of our so called friends might be too much to handle for the holidays,” he trailed off, thinking about what a disaster it would be to invite Crowley and Rowena over, holiday or not.

He wheezed out a gasping laugh wondering if he should pray an invitation out to Chuck and Amara before dismissing that idea entirely. Mary ignored his moment of hysteria to focus on the truly important issues.

“I heard Garth’s name in passing at Asa’s funeral, but I don’t think I know an Eileen.”

“Uh, yeah. Eileen. She worked a banshee case with us last spring, and she and Sam have been keeping in touch ever since.”

“They have, have they?” Mary asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, I should probably let Sam tell you about her.” Dean reached up to rub the back of his neck and looked down from the cornbread stuffing recipe he’d been copying off his laptop. “You’ll get to meet her if you’re planning on sticking around into December.”

Maybe Mary’s curiosity would be enough to get her to stay at home, at least for a little while. Dean hated himself a little bit for even thinking that way, but desperate times and all that.

“I think I’d like that,” Mary replied warmly, surprising him in the best possible way. “I think I’m ready to settle down again. At least as much as any hunter ever is,” she added, laughing.

In that moment you couldn’t have beaten the grin off Dean’s face with the world’s finest turducken.

Thanksgiving came and went in a flurry of activity. Dean proved his kitchen prowess with a perfectly cooked turkey and three entirely delicious pies. Cas even managed to follow the recipe for green bean casserole, and Dean had never seen him look more pleased with himself. They all had a hell of a lot to be thankful for.

A few days later as they finished off the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, Dean began plotting out the next important family holiday: Mary’s birthday.

“So, mom, what do you want to do for your birthday?” Dean asked between bites of the last of the pecan pie. He looked at her thoughtfully and asked, “I don’t even know how to celebrate. I mean, are you gonna be 29? Or 62? Or what? How does this even work?”

Mary swallowed hard, and Cas patted her on the back when it looked like she was going to choke. She thanked him with an awkward little smile and then turned to Dean.

“It’s not polite to ask a lady her age, Dean,” Cas said, completely deadpan despite the smile threatening to break at the corners of his mouth.

Dean grinned and lobbed a pecan at him. He grinned even wider when the gooey nut stuck to Cas’s cheek, and outright laughed when Cas picked it off, studied it for a second, and then popped it in his mouth.

“If it’s all right with everyone,” Mary said as soon as Dean recovered, “I think I’d prefer to be 29.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” Sam said.

“Speak for yourself, Sammy. For some of us, 29 sucked.”

“Oh, shit,” Sam said. “Right. Yeah, sorry.”

“I saved you from Hell when you were 29, Dean,” Cas added. “It wasn’t all terrible. At least, I hope you don’t think so.”

Dean shrugged. “Yeah, okay. I’ll give you that one.”

Mary stiffened at the casually issued reminder that her children had grown up to suffer the torments of hell (and heaven, and purgatory, and several apocalypses, and all the rest of it), but she breathed her way through it like a champ. Along her travels she’d been introduced to the series of books that she’d later learned that God himself had written about her boys, and somehow reading them had given her more insight into their lives than anything else had. John’s journal notes had paled in comparison to the detailed account of their lives in those books. It had been difficult to read, but also strangely comforting to know they’d survived all that to become the relatively well adjusted men who sat before her now. Men who were so much older than she was.

“What are you grinning about?” Dean asked.

Mary grinned wider. “I’m still in my 20’s. What’s not to grin about, old man?”

Dean huffed, indignant, and then laughed. “Yeah, well, Cas has got us all beat there. How old are you, anyway?”

Cas just shrugged. “I never bothered to count.”

“There you go. We don’t got enough candles for his birthday cake.”

Mary considered the angel thoughtfully for a moment. “Do you even have a birthday?”

Dean cut him off before Cas could say anything. “September 19.”

Cas tilted his head curiously at Dean, and then his eyes widened in understanding. “I suppose that’s as good a day to celebrate as any.”

Dean squirmed under the soft gaze Cas was radiating all over him, hoping his face wasn’t as pink as it felt, and turned the conversation back to Mary. “So what _do_ you wanna do for your birthday?”

Mary stood up to clear the table while she thought it over. “I think maybe I’d like to decorate this place for Christmas. Tree, lights, mistletoe. The works. Do you boys have decorations stashed away in one of those storerooms, or do we have to make a trip into town?”

“I have no idea,” Sam said. “We’ll look around tomorrow, and if we don’t find anything we can head up to Hastings. We’re about due for a grocery run anyway.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dean agreed.

 

It really wasn’t all that unexpected that Mary found herself tossing and turning an hour after Sam had excused himself to go to sleep. Dean had followed shortly after, and Cas had followed him less than a minute later. Mary had watched the angel squirm awkwardly in his seat before mumbling that there was something important that he’d forgotten to ask Dean, bolt suddenly out of his seat and practically fly down the hallway after him.

Figuring out the two of them had been one of the bigger challenges she’d faced while reintegrating herself into this strange future world. As confusing as Dean’s relationship with the angel was to her, she had a feeling it was even more confusing to the two of them. Mary had a feeling she wouldn’t be seeing either of them again before dawn.

She’d sighed and figured it was as good a time as any to try and get some sleep herself. It hadn’t been easy for her since she’d been back. At first there were the nightmares, flashes of memories from her old life twisted with the incomprehensible new world she found herself in, all mixed together with the smell of fire and sulfur. Once she’d set out on her own for a while, life on the road both helped and added problems of its own. The familiarity of driving and hunting helped ease her nightmares, but brought back that old hunter’s wariness that made for light sleep and the constant state of vigilant readiness that she’d spent years unsuccessfully trying to leave behind.

Even within the safety of the bunker, surrounded by the odd sense of comfort she drew from knowing her boys had made this strange old building into their home, she still didn’t feel quite like it was _her_ home yet. Lying in bed for nearly an hour, she still wasn’t anywhere close to sleep. She’d been studying all the little ridges and craters in the concrete wall beside her bed while running over and over the growing list of things she’d need to spruce the place up for Christmas. She might not be able to force herself to feel settled and at home, but making the cold and imposing bunker seem a little more homey certainly couldn’t hurt.

Mary finally couldn’t take any more. She whipped the blankets off and sat up. If she wasn’t going to sleep, maybe she could do something more productive than stare at a wall. She pulled on her robe and slippers and made her way through the halls until she’d found the corridor leading to the storage rooms. If she was lucky she might find a dusty old box of Christmas decorations, and even if she wasn’t lucky, at least perusing the vast collection of artifacts might prove more interesting than what she’d been doing for the last hour.

Sam had shown her around a little bit, mostly to warn her that they had no idea what most of the stuff packed away in dusty old boxes and crammed onto shelves was actually for.  Most of the artifacts were labeled, and most of the truly dangerous stuff was locked up in curse boxes, but even after nearly four years living there, Sam and Dean still hadn’t had a chance to sort through the entirety of the extensive collection. Sam had told her about the time they accidentally freed the Wicked Witch of the West, and Mary had laughed until she’d realized that Sam was being utterly serious. With that lesson in mind, she was extra careful not to accidentally wake some lurking evil that might murder her sons in their sleep. She only wanted to brighten the place up a bit, not inadvertently burn it to the ground.

The search for Christmas decor led her through three huge rooms full of increasingly bizarre artifacts. She tried not to let herself get distracted by the fascinating collection, and instead started a list of things she intended to take a closer look at when she had more time. Her original mission didn’t prove to be entirely futile though, and after a few hours she’d found enough items to fill a decent sized box.

A set of gold candelabras with an intricately carved motif of holly leaves, bundles of red and gold tinsel, a few old strands of lights that looked so worn and frayed it was probably safer to throw them out than to plug them in,an angel figurine with feathery wings that would be perfect atop their Christmas tree, a hand-carved nativity scene, and an assortment of other whittled and painted wooden trinkets that were likely made by the same person who carved the nativity, depicting snowmen, reindeer, and candy canes. It wasn’t much, but she figured it was a good start.

She was just about to flick off the light and carry her treasures out to the library when something caught her eye. The parchment it was printed on was ancient and yellowed, but she couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize what the simple illustration depicted sooner. She grabbed it up with a smile on her face, finally feeling like she’d be able to get a few hours of sleep.

 

The next morning, Mary found Cas curiously laying the items from her box of holiday treasures out on the table, examining each one in turn. She paused to watch the angel study one of the wooden candy canes as if it contained the secrets of the universe before carefully setting it down with the others. Only then did she interrupt his work.

“I found all that in one of the storage rooms last night.” She gestured at the odd arrangement of items while stepping up to the table beside Cas.

He smiled up at her, the pinch of his brow fading away. “Good morning, Mary. I take it you had trouble sleeping?”

“For a while,” she replied, picking up a tiny carved deer. “Finding these little guys worked better than counting sheep.”

Cas nodded sagely. “I’ve experienced that same dilemma.”

Just then Dean walked in carrying two coffee mugs. He stopped in his tracks for a second, a flash of panic crossing his face, before taking a deep breath and continuing into the library. He shot what looked to Mary like an apologetic smile at Cas, and then offered her one of the mugs.

“Mornin’, mom. Coffee?”

Mary glanced between Dean and Cas, then down at the mugs.  One was filled with black coffee and the other, the one he offered her, was lightened with milk. Still, something seemed off about accepting it.

“I’ll get some for myself in a minute, but thanks.”

Dean nodded, a small smile fighting its way across his lips as he wordlessly handed a mug to Castiel, who smiled gratefully and took a sip.

“Looks like you got a jump start on the Christmas rush,” Dean said, picking up the delicate angel figurine and turning it over in his hands to inspect its feathery wings. “At least we won’t have to ask Cas to sit on top of the tree now.”

Dean grinned over at him and Cas just squinted back. He glanced down at Dean picking at the angel’s tiny feathers and his eyes suddenly widened in alarm. He batted Dean’s hand away from the wings and carefully set the angel back on the table.

“What the hell, man?”

“I’m sorry, Dean, but those are genuine angel feathers. It’s probably best not to treat them so… cavalierly.”

“Angels have feathers?” Mary asked, studying Cas more closely, trying to figure out if she could see them, or maybe wondering where they were hidden.

Dean looked surprised as well, but for very different reasons.

“Dude, your feathers are a hell of a lot bigger than that. Wait, did these come from some midget angel? I guess you’re not all the size of the Chrysler building, eh?”

Cas had been about to answer Mary, but after Dean’s little outburst both Cas and Mary were just staring at him. After a moment, Dean’s grin faltered a bit and Cas finally sighed and answered his questions.

“Angels are more varied in size than humans are, but these feathers didn’t come from a _midget angel_.” Cas used the finger quotes, but it was obvious he was struggling not to smile at Dean. “Wings are comprised of many different types of feathers. The larger, outer feathers-- coverts, primary and secondary flight feathers-- those are the ones you can see. These are semiplumes, which lie beneath the coverts.”

Mary suddenly felt like neither man even remembered she was in the room with them. All of Castiel’s attention was on Dean, who in turn took a step closer to Cas, as if he could see the angel’s invisible wings and was leaning in to get a better look.

“So, what, you got a layer of fluffy goose down under the big scary feathers?”

Cas tilted his head and squinted at Dean. “It’s not goose down. It’s angel down, technically, I suppose.”

Mary watched Dean’s eyes widen, and then Cas frowned.

“I’m not sure what’s left of my wings at this point anyway. I haven’t examined them since Lucifer…”

“Oh shit, Cas,” Dean said, taking the final step to Cas’s side and resting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

Cas shook his head and smiled grimly. “It’s not important, Dean.”

“Yeah, it is.”

The two of them just stood there staring at each other. Mary watched, slowly beginning to understand that for Dean and Cas, the conversation hadn’t awkwardly screeched to a halt. The longer she watched, the more fascinating she found it. She resisted the urge to clear her throat, or even to move from where she stood, lest she break whatever strange spell she was witnessing. That was apparently Sam’s job.

He came barreling into the library, a cup of coffee in one hand and his laptop in the other, interrupting the serene scene. Mary startled out of her reverie, but Dean and Cas calmly turned toward Sam as if they hadn’t just spent the previous five minutes meditating on each other’s eyes.

“Hey guys. Eileen just texted me. She thinks she’s found another case and wants a little backup.”  
“I thought she was headed back here?” Dean asked. Neither he nor Cas had moved, but Sam set his laptop down on the table where they could both clearly see the screen. “Where’d she find another case so fast?”

“Idaho,” Sam answered, pulling up his email. “She’s sending directions.”

Dean cast a disappointed look at Cas and discreetly patted the back of his shoulder as he stepped around him, then pulled out the chair beside Sam and dropped into it. “What’s she got? Not another banshee, is it?”

“Banshee? She works banshee cases alone?” Mary walked around the table to stand behind her boys, next to Cas, as they all leaned in to look at the notes Eileen compiled, with a growing sense of respect for this new hunter already. Banshees and sirens both usually required backup, just because of the nature of the monster. When one hunter succumbs, the other finishes the monster off. Working a banshee case alone was practically a suicide mission.

“Yeah, she’s sort of a specialist,” Dean said, already absorbed in the crime scene photos Eileen had sent.

That left Sam to clarify. “She’s uniquely immune to banshees, mom. Eileen’s deaf.”

“Oh!” That was all Mary could say to that, but it didn’t matter anyway, because the others had already moved on to breaking down the case they’d been presented with.

After twenty minutes of discussion, they’d all agreed that it was either a vengeful spirit or a vengeful witch, but in either case it wouldn’t require all of them driving out to Idaho to get it squared away. The discussion turned instead to deciding who should make the drive and who’d be left behind at the bunker to head up holiday decoration committee.

It was unanimous that Sam would go since he hadn’t seen Eileen in several weeks and didn’t want to wait any longer. Dean insisted on staying behind to make sure nobody tried to “douche the place up too much with pinecones and Santas and shit.” Mary frowned at his language, but she was too busy debating whether she or Cas should accompany Sam to scold him for being a grinch.

Cas made a good case for himself, since he was still technically a hunter in training and was trying to work as many cases as possible with Sam and Dean. Mary, however, clinched the deal with her desire to meet the young lady in Sam’s life. Phrasing it that way, despite the fact that Eileen was probably older than she technically was now, had layered on just enough guilt to tip the scales in Mary's favor. As she followed Sam out to go get packed for the trip, she stopped to apologize to Cas. She gripped his shoulder warmly and smiled up at him.

“I’m sorry if I stepped on any toes here, but I’m also not sorry.”

Cas glanced from her hand on his arm to Mary’s mischievously smiling face.

“I really do think you’ll enjoy having some quiet time alone with Dean, though,” Mary said, her eyebrows raised in hopes that Cas would understand her meaning. “I think it’ll be good for both of you to relax and have a little fun. Plus I think you’re the only one capable of helping Ebeneezer Scrooge over there through his own Christmas miracle.”

“Oh,” Cas said as Mary glanced over at Dean, his eyes widening in understanding. “You know they were spirits in the original story, not angels, right?”

Mary just smiled at him and smoothed down his collar. “I trust you’ve got more of the Christmas spirit in you that Dean does, anyway. You boys take care of each other now.”

“We always do,” Cas replied as Mary walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

An hour after Sam and Mary pulled out of the bunker garage in the Impala, Cas found Dean in the library sorting through Mary’s found Christmas treasures. He’d chucked the ancient, frayed light strands back in the box just on principle, and set up the nativity scene on a small table beside one of the comfortable armchairs off to the side of the room. Cas wandered over and removed the reindeer from the scene when Dean finally looked up and noticed what he was doing.

“Whatcha doin’ with Rudolph, Cas?”

Cas glanced at the wooden deer in his hand and then pointed at the barnyard animal figurines in the rest of the set. “There were no reindeer present at the birth of Christ. They’re not native to the Middle East.”

Dean put on a pout and strolled over to pluck the deer out of Cas’s fingers and set it back between a donkey and a camel. “So you’re saying Santa didn’t send an emissary to meet the Big Guy? Way to ruin Christmas, dude.”

“Santa wasn’t... “ Cas finally noticed Dean’s playful smirk and stopped trying to explain himself.

“I thought mom left you behind to stop _me_ from going full grinch, not the other way around.”

“I suppose historical accuracy isn’t the primary goal of holiday decorating,” Cas conceded, poking one finger at the angel atop the creche. “Although Gabriel would find it amusing to know how often he’s portrayed as a female.”

Dean snorted, and then Cas noticed the parchment in Dean’s hand.

“What’s that?”

“Huh?” Dean replied, looking down at the page like he only just remembered it existed. “I, uh… It was in the box. I dunno of mom put it in there or what, but it doesn’t exactly look Christmassy, so maybe not? I thought if she liked it or whatever we could pick up a frame for it while we’re out later. You know, surprise her for her birthday or something.”

Dean held the page so Cas could see the illustrations. They stood shoulder to shoulder while Cas squinted down at the details, reflexively reaching out to accept the ancient paper from Dean. The moment his hand touched the edge of the page a spark of blue light ran across from his fingers to Dean’s and then back again. Dean let go of the page to examine his hand, which seemed unharmed, but he warily eyed the paper still in Castiel’s hand.

“What the fuck was that?”

“I believe we activated some sort of spell that had been bound to the parchment.” Cas continued studying the drawing, flipping it over to examine the blank side of the page as well.

“You mean _you_ activated some sorta spell. It didn’t do shit until you touched it. Maybe it’s just allergic to angel mojo.”

“I don’t think so, but perhaps your instinct to encase it behind a layer of glass was warranted.”

“Probably should rethink the idea of giving it to mom for her birthday, too,” Dean added, glaring at the paper as Cas set it down on the table. “You think we’re cursed or something now?”

“No more than usual,” Cas replied after giving Dean a thorough once over with the x-ray vision. “If we intend to drive all the way to Hastings for decorations today, we should probably get started soon. Mary left a list for us.”

Cas reached into his pocket for the list and handed it over to Dean, who continued to look at him skeptically but eventually relented and unfolded Mary’s note.

“Christmas tree and stand, ornaments, wreath, lights, garland, tree skirt… okay whatever. I know how to do Christmas.” Dean stuffed the note in his pocket and headed toward the stairs. He stopped at the bottom and turned around to face Cas, still in the library giving a last look over the strange drawing. “You driving, or are you just gonna stand there?”

“It’s my truck,” Cas replied, straightening up and following after Dean. “Of course I’m driving.”

Dean couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as they both raced to the top of the stairs and out into the cold late November air.

They spent most of the hour long drive up to Hastings talking about everything from the hunt Sam and Mary had just left for, to the grocery list they were intermittently composing as Dean randomly blurted out more items to add, to what variety of tree makes for the best Christmas tree. It was the sort of rambling conversation that they’d been having nearly every night.

It had started weeks earlier. Maybe even months. Dean had sort of lost track, it had been so long now. Cas had knocked on his door one night when he was getting ready for bed, wondering if he could borrow Dean’s slippers. He'd wanted to take off his boots and get comfortable, but he didn’t have his own pair of slippers and felt weird about walking around the bunker all night in just his socks. Dean hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry at the the request, or at the thought of Cas aimlessly wandering the halls all night. He’d given Cas his slippers and then pushed him by the shoulder until Cas had sat down in the chair in the corner of the room, and then promised they’d pick him up his own pair the next time they went to the store.

While Cas removed his shoes, Dean began talking about slippers; fuzzy slippers, silly slippers, bunny slippers. Rather than get up and leave Dean to sleep after changing his shoes, Cas sat there talking about inconsequential things with Dean until he finally nodded off. He could’ve left then, continued with his nightly explorations of the bunker, but Cas felt more comfortable than he had in a long time, just sitting there watching Dean sleep. He was still an angel, and angels didn’t need to sleep, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t relax. Deeply.

(Maybe he'd been a little bit asleep.)

Dean gently jostled his shoulder the next morning, and Cas bolted awake worried that Dean would be upset to find him still there. Instead Dean had been amused. Cas changed back into his boots, and a few days later a second pair of slippers joined Dean’s beneath the edge of his bed. Fluffy light blue bunny slippers, to be exact. They became an excuse for Cas to show up in Dean’s room every night. Somehow over the course of weeks (or maybe it was months), Cas had slowly migrated from nodding off in the chair to sitting at the edge of the bed, to fully reclining by Dean’s side while they watched movies or researched cases.

The drive to Hastings may have seemed similar to their nightly conversations, but there was an undercurrent of discomfort about the one obvious subject they were both avoiding; the strange shock they’d received from Mary’s parchment.

By the time they pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot, most of the tension had dissipated. They were both fine, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and without having to say a word about it they’d mutually agreed to let it go. No use getting all worked up over nothing.

The drive home three hours later, with the truck bed filled to overflowing with Christmas spirit, felt entirely different than the drive up had. Every bit of unease had evaporated while they’d filled their carts with lights and ornaments.

“You can’t just have green ornaments on a green tree, Cas.”

“I don’t see why not,” Cas argued. “Green is one of the primary colors associated with Christmas, is it not?”

“Yeah, but so’s red. You gotta put some other colors on a Christmas tree,” Dean replied, grinning over at Cas behind the wheel of his truck as they pulled up in front of the bunker.

“You bought well over a thousand rainbow colored lights to hang on the tree, Dean. Isn’t that enough color variation? Wouldn’t it be more soothing if the ornaments merely served to reflect those colors rather than compete with them?”

Dean just stared at Cas as he threw the truck into park, switched off the engine and turned in his seat to finally face Dean. Cas waited patiently for Dean’s reply, but Dean was still trying to come up with something more coherent and less antagonistic than _that’s not how it works_. He finally blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Why green, though? Why not silver or some shit that’ll actually reflect the lights better?”

Cas just shrugged and turned to get out of the truck. “I like green.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you pick the decorations,” Dean grumbled under his breath, but he was grinning about it anyway. He’d at least managed to talk Cas into a few boxes of glittery gold plastic baubles, “to break up all the green.”

Dean got out and joined Cas at the back of the truck to offload the groceries first. When they were both loaded down with shopping bags they headed inside to stock everything away in the kitchen. They never even made it that far. From the top of the stairs they heard what could only be some sort of bird making an awful racket somewhere nearby.

“How the fuck did a bird get in here? This place is warded against practically everything, but now birds can get in?”

“I believe it’s a rock partridge,” Cas offered unhelpfully.

“Great, I’ll give it a guitar and invite Danny Bonaduce over to play drums with it.”

Cas ignored Dean’s joke and followed him down the stairs. “They’re native to the Mediterranean. I have no idea how it even arrived in this country, let alone inside the bunker.”

“Holy shit,” Dean said, coming to a stop at the entrance to the library and dropping his grocery bags on the steps.

Off to one side of the tables, in the spot Dean and Cas had been considering for the Christmas tree that still lay waiting out in the bed of Cas’s truck, sat a huge potted pear tree and the source of the increasingly annoying bird calls.

“Yes, that’s definitely a rock partridge,” Cas confirmed.

“In a fucking pear tree,” Dean replied, and then groaned when he put two and two together. “Dammit, that’s exactly where we were standing when that drawing attacked us.”

Cas placed his grocery bags down next to Dean’s and slowly walked over to examine the tree that had seemingly sprouted up out of nowhere while they’d been out. It took him another moment, but then Cas’s eyes widened. “It’s the first day of Christmas. But that’s not until December 25th. It’s still November.”

“I don’t think the drawing knows that, or cares,” Dean replied, glaring at the noisy bird and the inconvenient tree for another minute before sighing and heading back to pick up their groceries. “We’ll figure it out after we get all this stuff put away, or we’re gonna have melted ice cream as well as partridge shit to clean up.”

They worked quickly to get everything brought inside and put away as Dean’s nerves grew increasingly more frayed with every chirp and warble out of the incessantly squawking partridge.

“We gotta find a way to reverse whatever the hell we did, or in a few days we’re gonna be drowning in birds here,” Dean said while he and Cas lugged the tree, partridge and all, up the stairs and out the front door.

“You suspect that we’ll find two turtledoves tomorrow?” Cas asked.

“And hopefully not another partridge in another tree. I don’t think my back could take another round of this. It's worse than hauling bodies.”

They picked a nice spot to plant the tree and twenty minutes later stood back to admire their work.

“That’s it,” Dean said, heading back toward the bunker. “I’m done with everything tree-related for today. Decorating can wait for tomorrow. We need some dinner, and then we need to figure out just how bad we cursed ourselves. Or we’re gonna have bigger problems than birds on our hands.”

An hour and several burgers later, Dean and Cas sat at the library table scouring the records for any mention of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Three utterly unrewarding hours after that Dean finally stood up to stretch his aching back.

“Well I got nothin’. You have any better luck?”

Cas shook his head and stood up to reshelve yet another unhelpful book. “Not yet. There must be something in the records. I can’t imagine the Men of Letters would’ve left a document with magical properties lying in the storage room unlabeled.”

“Maybe they didn’t know it had magical properties.” Dean suggested, draining the last of his beer and tossing the bottle in the trash. “Mom just chucked in the box with all the rest of the Christmas stuff, and it didn’t seem any different from any other old piece of paper in this place until I handed it to you.”

Cas stood there for a moment with a thoughtful look on his face before pulling Dean’s laptop around and typing something in. He clicked on a few links, frowning with his eyebrows pinched together before he hesitantly turned the computer around so Dean could see.

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me,” Dean sang out half-heartedly. “Yeah, Cas. I know the song. So what?”

Cas took a deep breath, unsure exactly how to approach this without causing Dean any undue distress, and decided on the absolute most basic interpretation. The one that avoided any and all reference to the phrase "true love."

“The lyrics are about giving gifts,” Cas suggested. “Perhaps the fact that you handed it to me was the necessary step to activate the spell.”

Dean stared at Cas for a few seconds. “What, it thinks I was giving it to you as a gift?”

Cas shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

“We were planning to put it in a frame to give to Mom, too.”

At the reminder, Dean ran out to the pile of Christmas decorations in the war room and dug the simple black frame they’d bought for it out of one of the bags. He brought it back to the library and spent a minute encasing the parchment behind glass.

“There. Maybe now it can’t spit out any more birds.”

“I don’t think a layer of glass is going to contain the spell,” Cas said, examining the framed print when Dean set it down on the side table. “If we can figure out the origin of the spell, I might be able to ward the frame, but until then I think we need to prepare for the worst,”

Preparing for the worst, as it turned out, involved building a small nest on the ground in the spot where the pear tree had materialized that afternoon. Cas ran off to fetch a spare blanket that he laid out on the floor and bunched up all around the sides to create an impromptu cozy turtle dove pen.

“You really think that’ll hold ‘em?” Dean asked skeptically as Cas stood up. He could see it now, two doves running around loose in the huge maze of the bunker. He was momentarily relieved that they hadn’t yet gotten to the six geese a’laying bit. He didn’t even want to think about finding eggs all over the place. Or worse, eggs  _hatching_ all over the place.

“It’s doubtful. After all, they can fly. But it’s worth a try.”

Dean sighed, and they stood there staring at the blanket nest for another few minutes, halfway expecting the doves to suddenly appear. Eventually Dean yawned, and Cas took that as his cue to reach up and lay a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Maybe we should get some sleep. Birds or not, we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

They both turned and faced the mountain of Christmas decorations they had to assemble, and Dean agreed.

“Yeah. And if we get more birds tomorrow, we’re gonna have to pick a different spot for the tree.”

Cas gave a weak little smile and the two of them trudged off to Dean’s room. Cas didn’t even bother with his slippers. He waited for Dean to brush his teeth, change, and slide under the blankets before settling down on top of the covers at the other side of the bed. Dean reached over and switched off the light, but then rolled over to face Cas. He reached out a hand and laid it on Cas’s shoulder.

“‘M sorry I blamed your mojo for startin’ all this.”

Lying on his back, Cas turned his head toward Dean and smiled. “It’s okay. I blamed myself for a moment, too.”

“Shut up. You’re not allowed to blame yourself for shit you didn’t even do.”

Cas smiled fondly at Dean. “You’re one to talk.” His smile fell away and he rolled over on his side to face Dean. “There are things I haven’t done that I blame myself for constantly.”

“Well, stop it,” Dean replied, already half asleep. “You didn’t do it, ‘s not your fault. Let it go.” Dean snorted out a little sleepy laugh. “Or, ya know, go out and do the things. Then you won’t feel so bad about taking the blame.”

Cas bit back a little nervous laugh and watched Dean slip into sleep, Dean’s hand still resting on his shoulder, thinking to himself, _if only I dared_.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn’t surprising in the least that when Dean awoke a few hours later and he and Cas cautiously ventured out to the library, they were greeted by the soft cooing of a pair of pale grey and brown doves happily nestled together in Cas’s impromptu blanket nest. At least there wasn’t another pear tree to haul outside. After taking in the sight, Dean glanced over at Cas to see him smiling fondly at the cuddling birds.  He’d been about to suggest they dump the birds outside with the partridge, but something about the look on Cas’s face made him pause.

Not too long, though, because birds. In the library. That couldn’t be a good thing, long-term.

Dean watched Cas watch the birds for another few minutes, and then cleared his throat. “We should probably let them go outside. If they fly off lookin' for breakfast in here, they’re gonna get lost in the maze of hallways and starve to death.”

Cas frowned at that thought, but reluctantly agreed. “I suppose we should each take one.”

Dean shrugged and followed Cas over to the nest. They crouched down, Cas speaking in low warbling murmurs that Dean was half convinced was actual turtle dove speech. The birds blinked up at him, and then Cas reached out and carefully picked up the one closest to him, cradling it to his chest. The other bird immediately began cooing mournfully, flapping its wings and struggling to join its mate.

“Dean, please pick her up,” Cas told him urgently. “She’s afraid she’ll be separated from her mate.”

Dean found himself picking up the small bird and nonsensically muttering comforting words to her as he followed Cas slowly up the stairs. When they reached the pear tree they’d planted the day before, it had more than doubled in size. It was easily taller that Sam now. The partridge it had come with was still nesting in its branches, but now there was also more than enough room for the pair of doves.

“This look like a good spot to you?” Dean asked the bird in his hands before gently placing her on the branch next to her mate.

The dove nipped lightly at his finger before snuggling down contentedly against her mate’s side, and the both of them dozed off together. Dean couldn’t help but smile at the sight. For some reason, the birds made him think of himself and Cas, and the way the two of them had fallen asleep the night before. And every night for the last few weeks. Or maybe even months.

Cas leaned his shoulder against Dean’s and snapped him out of his thoughts. He shivered, noticing the chill in the air for the first time since they’d stepped outside, realizing that neither of them had bothered to put on a jacket.

“We should get back inside,” Dean said, rubbing his arms through his shirt sleeves. “Make some coffee, and maybe spend a few hours decorating the place before we get back to researching our little bird problem.”

“Hmmm. I’m not sure it is a problem, Dean,” Cas said, watching the doves slumbering contentedly on their branch.

That gave Dean pause. A few small birds weren’t really a problem, but if they didn’t nip this curse in the bud now, eventually they were gonna move up to livestock and actual _people_ randomly appearing in the library. It was one thing to dump a few birds out in the yard. It was another entirely to release cows and dancing girls and leaping lords into the frigid Kansas wilderness. That thought made him wonder something else.

“You don’t think it’s too cold out here for these birds, do you? I mean, don’t birds fly south for the winter?”

Cas shrugged. “I don’t believe they’re normal birds, Dean. The spell brought them here. I don’t think it would allow harm to come to them. I’m not entirely sure they’re real birds, anyway. They’re likely just constructs of the spell.”

“Huh.” Dean was half tempted to run back inside to bring the blanket nest back out just in case they got too cold. “At least they got each other to keep them warm.”

“Yes, and that’s likely all they need. Turtle doves maintain a very strong mating bond throughout their lives. They won’t wander far from one another. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them.”

Dean thought about that again, watching the birds he’d been mentally comparing to him and Cas, trying to reconcile that with what Cas had said about them bonding for life. Because really, even if he was too chickenshit to admit it out loud to Cas, it still wasn’t far off the mark on how he felt.

They spent the rest of the morning decorating the bunker, happily distracted from their bird problem. Dean set up the tree and showed Cas how to string the lights, and then let Cas go to town hanging all the ornaments he’d picked out while Dean draped doorways and bookshelves with holly and pine garlands. The bunker might not have a fireplace, but Dean was just as content to hang the stockings they’d picked out for everyone along one of the bookshelves. Dean turned from hanging the last stocking to see Cas perched precariously on one of the bookshelves across the room attempting to place the angel atop the fully decorated tree.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cas. Careful there,” Dean said, dashing over to keep both Cas and the Christmas tree from toppling over.

He’d been about to grab Cas by the waist to hold him steady, but at the last second he corrected himself and grabbed the tree instead. Up close he noticed that Cas had been right. The green ornaments sort of blended into the greenery of the tree itself, magnifying the soft glow of the multi-colored lights. Here and there a glittering gold ornament broke up the pattern with a dazzling shimmer of sparkles. The overall effect was just as soothing and lovely as Cas had sworn it would be, and Dean found himself grinning up at Cas as he finally placed the angel and leaned back to admire his handiwork.

“Looking good there, Cas,” Dean said, and felt his eyes go wide when he realized he wasn’t entirely talking about the tree.

If Cas caught the double meaning of his words, he didn’t say anything. He just climbed down from his perch on the bookshelves and stood by Dean’s side, looking around at all the decorations.

“What do we have left to do?” Cas asked after a minute or two.

Dean cleared his throat and glanced back at their remaining pile of shopping bags. “I, um. We have a couple little trees and tablecloths for the tables, and the bag of wrapping paper and shit that we won’t need until we’ve actually got presents to wrap. And the mistletoe, but I mostly got that as a gag for when Sammy and Eileen get home.”

Cas seemed taken aback at that, but then thought about it for a minute, regarding Dean carefully. “If I recall correctly, people are supposed to kiss beneath the mistletoe.”

Dean nodded slowly, his mouth so completely dry he thought he might choke. He’d said he _mostly_ got it for Sam and Eileen. He hadn’t known that Cas knew the significance of mistletoe, or he would’ve been more careful with his words. Then again, Cas was looking more intrigued than concerned.

Cas regarded him carefully for another minute while Dean slowly felt his cheeks flush. Dammit, he would not look away. He held Cas’s gaze, half wishing Cas would just call him out on it already, and half wishing the floor would just open up and swallow him whole. Seeing as how there was probably some weird artifact hidden in the bunker that could literally make that happen for him, he didn’t dwell on that thought too long. It was already bad enough having to deal with the bird curse. He didn’t need to worry about having to break a second curse this week.

Eventually Cas nodded, and Dean sighed. His relief lasted mere seconds before Cas broke it with a simple question.

“Where should we hang the mistletoe, then?”

“I… um, hadn’t really thought about it.”

Cas gave him another minute to change his mind, and then let him off the hook yet again with an awkwardly delivered suggestion. “I suppose we can ponder our options for a day or two. We should select a location where it will have a... maximum effect.”

It was Dean’s turn to stare now, as Cas turned a lovely shade of pink and uncharacteristically was the first to break eye contact. Huh. Maybe Cas was suffering through some of the same emotional turmoil that Dean had been over these last few weeks. Or maybe it was months.

Oh, fuck it. It had been _years_ at this point.

It was Dean’s turn to let Cas off the hook, at least for now. He sighed, and suggested they break for lunch before diving back into their research. Dean snapped pictures of the Christmas tree and sent them off to Sam and Mary, asking them how their hunt was going. Sam texted back that it had gotten complicated, and they thought it might be witches deliberately stirring up vengeful spirits, rather than just being one or the other. He promised to keep Dean updated, and asked how he and Cas were getting along.

Dean replied with a terse, “We’re all good here,” cast a wary glance over at Cas beginning to pull out more books for them to look through, and then sent one last text to Sam. “Be careful, let us know if you need anything.” He shoved his phone back in his pocket, picked the first book off the top of the pile that Cas had set down on the table and got to work.

Hours later, sitting at the library table that had since been decked out with a gold table runner and an assortment of miniature pine trees flanked by the gold candelabras that Mary had brought up from storage, Cas finally found a book describing their Twelve Days of Christmas parchment. He read through the entire entry several times, swallowing hard and fidgeting in his seat as he let the full weight of the words settle within him. He could hide this, pretend he never saw it, and let the curse run its course. It would be an irritation, but one he could deal with.

Or he could show Dean. It would change everything. He wasn’t sure how Dean would react. It could go one of two ways. Dean would either let himself accept it, or he could do what he’s been doing for years and angrily deny it all. Cas stole a few glances up at Dean while he thought through his options. At one point he caught Dean doing the same, just glancing up at him and smiling before returning his attention to his own book. It reminded Cas of the last look Dean had given him the night before, as they lay in Dean’s bed and drifted off to sleep.

That was the deciding factor. Dean hadn’t denied him anything he’d asked for in a long time. Years, maybe. He’d just kept giving and giving, possibly without even realizing just how much. According to the book in front of him, that’s exactly how they’d wound up in this predicament. It was Cas’s turn to give Dean something equally monumental in return. He stood up and cleared his throat, and then hesitantly passed the book across the table. He laid it atop the book Dean had been paging through without any other commentary.

Dean glanced up at Cas, curious, but Cas couldn’t meet his eyes. Worried, Dean took a deep breath and set to reading the words printed beneath an illustration of their mystery parchment.

_The ink used to illustrate these twelve gifts was imbued with a spell that activated when presented to the object of one’s affections. Each day for the next twelve, the recipient would receive one of the twelve gifts represented in the verse. The originator of the spell designed it to reveal the true heart of his beloved, who had rebuffed him before Christmas. His intention was to prove that she loved him truly in return. When he presented her with his gift, the spell failed, the remainder of his gifts never materialized, and he had conclusive proof that she loved him not._

Dean sat there for a moment, frozen, just staring at the page. He read the paragraph over and over until he’d practically memorized it. He turned the page hoping to see if there was any more information, but that one small paragraph contained the entirety of the facts that had been recorded about their little curse.

In some ways, it was _far_ more than enough information. It really should’ve been obvious, though. The more Dean thought about it, the dumber he felt. It’s right there in the first damn line; _my true love gave to me_. Aside from the counting bit and all the birds and shit, it’s essentially the only other part of the whole damn song.

Dean’s heart was practically beating its way through his ribs and his mouth had gone all pasty. Somehow he found enough spit to gulp, and then risked an anxious peek across the table at Cas.

Cas sat back in his chair fidgeting nervously, rubbing his hands together in his lap while staring intently at a spot about two feet to the left of Dean’s head. He looked _terrified_.

Dean closed his eyes and took a fortifying breath. He couldn’t let Cas feel bad about this. After all, Dean was at least as responsible as Cas was for this whole mess, if not more so. He’d been the bonehead who handed the parchment to Cas in the first place. Dean wasn’t sure he could move, let alone stand up. His knees wouldn’t likely support him right this second. Years of wishing he might someday grow a pair and admit his feelings to Cas, and all it took in the end was an accidental curse and a couple of birds. The best part of it all was that the nature of the curse itself already assured him that Cas felt the same way about him. So why were they both still so fucking scared to admit it now?

Dean laughed, and Cas finally met his eyes. He still looked worried, but it was fading as he took in Dean’s smiling face.

“Looks like we were both outed by an old piece of paper.”

After a tense few moments of staring at each other across the table, Dean dared to speak again. His voice was rough and low, but he miraculously got all the words out.

“So, you really love me, huh?”

Cas nodded slowly. “You love me, too. It only seemed fair.”

“It’s good to know, though, right?” Dean asked, amazed at how he felt now that this was all out in the open, and now that he was sure his feelings were reciprocated beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had a tree full of birds out in the yard to prove it. “It’s a fucking relief, really.”

“I suppose it is,” Cas agreed. A minute later he added, “We should’ve said something to one another ages ago.”

Dean laughed again. “Yeah, but if you’d asked me how I felt about you ten minutes ago, I would’ve lied through my goddamn teeth.”

“I never wanted to burden you with my feelings,” Cas replied. “It didn’t seem fair to you.”

Dean felt a pang of regret shoot through him. He probably deserved it after the way he’d treated Cas over the years. He’d always kept Cas at arm’s length because he hadn’t wanted to burden Cas with his own feelings.

“It goes both ways, buddy. Why do you think I spent so much time pushing you away?”

“Well, then. It seems we’ve both been, as you once said, a couple of dumbasses.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t get any more dumb or more ass than us.”

Cas grinned at him. “It’s lucky we have each other, then.”

They sat for several more minutes contemplating each other and their strange situation. The undeniable proof that they loved each other had cast a uniquely unproblematic ray of sunshine into their lives. The anxiety they’d each harbored over their own feelings had lifted instantly, and Dean had to admit he hadn’t felt so purely content in ages. Decades, probably.

Of course, being who he was, Dean didn’t completely trust the feeling, but he was willing to overlook that minor detail for now. He’d pushed his feelings down for so long, it would likely take him and Cas another ten years to sort through everything anyway. In the meantime, they had a few other more pressing things to think about.

“So, we should probably get some dinner, huh? Since there’s nothing in here about how to stop the spell once it’s started.”

Cas nodded, slowly pushing his chair back and standing up. “It’s likely no one ever thought to write it down. If the spell failed on its original casting, the person who created it likely set it aside and never bothered with it again.”

Dean sympathized with that. “Yeah, a broken heart’ll do that to a guy.”

Cas walked around the table and stood next to Dean. He awkwardly reached a hand out and laid it on Dean’s shoulder. It was nothing he hadn’t done a thousand times before, but in the aftermath of their recent revelation, it was something entirely new and filled with wonder.

Dean looked up at him and smiled, then laid his hand atop Cas’s. Yeah, this was all going to be okay. If only they could figure out how to politely ask for the parchment to turn off the birds now that it had delivered its message.


	4. Chapter 4

Dinner that night proved to be interesting. Not the food itself, or the eating thereof, but the conversation. They’d spent months able to easily talk for hours on end about any topic under the sun, and suddenly when that one topic they’d really been tiptoeing around all that time had finally been addressed, they didn’t have a clue what to say to each other anymore.

Dean cooked, they ate, and then they sat at the table long after dinner was done. Dean eventually broke the silence with an attempt at sneaking up sideways on the elephant in the room.

“So you think admitting it’s enough to break the spell, or are we gonna have hens in the morning. ‘Cause I gotta say, having fresh eggs for breakfast doesn’t sound half bad.”

Cas snorted out a laugh and shook his head. “Something tells me the spell will require more than an admission of our feelings in order to break.”

Dean tensed up for a second at the implications of Cas’s prediction, and an outlandish list of possibilities ran through his mind. It simultaneously filled him with both hope and terror. He was too nervous to think straight, but he still had enough sense not to blurt out something crass about consummating their relationship. No, what came out of his mouth was far worse than that.

It tumbled out so fast it practically broke the sound barrier.

“You don’t think we need to get married or anything…”

Cas reached over and laid his hand atop Dean’s, and seemed just as nervous as Dean was. It was strangely a relief. At least Cas's halting suggestion seemed doable.

“Well, it might not hurt to maybe try… testing out that mistletoe… if you’re not averse to that, I mean.”

Dean sucked in a huge gulp of air, held it for a moment while he blinked at Cas, and then slowly blew it back out while nodding. He would _not_ think the words  _true love's kiss_ , goddammit he was not a fucking Disney princess.

“We really should make sure it’s safe before we just go hanging strange plants up all over the place.”

Cas nodded gravely. “It would probably be irresponsible not to.”

“Yeah, we can’t let any more accidental magic loose in here. Never know what kind of dangerous spells some disgruntled clerk at Wal-Mart might’ve been laying on the mistletoe.”

Dean was just babbling at this point, because he was still too nervous to stand up. He knew logically that he didn’t need to invent any more excuses to walk around the table, pull Cas out of his seat and just plant one on him. Cas had given him the next best thing to an engraved invitation. God, he’d been waiting far too long as it was.

Fuck it. They could test the mistletoe out tomorrow.

His rush of bravado petered out the second he sprang to his feet. He stood there, swaying a little on wobbly legs and staring at Cas across the table until Cas slowly rose from his chair. They both edged around to the end of the table, just standing there in the middle of the kitchen, facing each other from a foot away.

Dean knew his face was betraying him. He could feel the heat in his cheeks, but it was okay because Cas was flushed with nerves too. They both took a few awkward, shuffling steps toward each other, leaning ever closer by inches, their eyes slipping shut just before their lips met. The kiss only lasted a few seconds before they leaned back just far enough to blink and stare at each other in surprised wonder.

Dean basked in the delight and shock on Cas’s face, and knew Cas was seeing pretty much the exact same thing on his face. There were probably words he should’ve been saying; big, important words. After everything they’d been through, Cas probably knew them all by now anyway. He couldn’t stand it any longer, and reached a hand up to stroke along Cas’s cheek and down his neck before letting it come to rest on his shoulder. Then he finally pulled Cas into the kind of kiss he’d only ever dreamed about.

He only suffered through a second or two of sheer panic before Cas wrapped his arms around Dean’s back and began kissing him in earnest, nearly knocking Dean over with the force of it. Dean pushed back, and they stumbled across the floor until Cas’s back hit the wall. Dean pinned him in place, holding him there with his entire body.

Cas felt so warm, so right pressed against him, one hand clenched in his hair and the other grasping at his back struggling to pull Dean even closer. When they broke for air, Dean panted into Cas’s mouth as Cas continued to drop reverent little kisses across his lips. Dean found himself doing the same, while trying to control himself long enough to get them out of the kitchen and to somewhere more comfortable.

“You think maybe that broke the spell?” Dean asked when he’d caught his breath.

“Hnnnn.” Cas hadn’t been deterred from his ministrations, but now he opened his eyes and focused carefully on Dean. “I don’t believe it has, no.”

If this were anyone other than Cas, Dean would think it was just a line, an excuse to keep doing whatever it was they were doing. But this was Cas. Dean knew he was being one hundred percent serious. That didn’t mean Dean couldn’t use it to his own advantage.

“Guess we should keep trying, then, huh?”

“I’m not sure it would make a difference to the spell, but I’d like to continue regardless.”

Dean nodded, placed one last kiss on Cas’s lips, and then stepped back. Cas tried to keep Dean where he wanted him and pull him back into their embrace, but Dean held him off.

“If we’re doing this, then I’d rather not do it standing up in the kitchen, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I’ll go with you wherever you want, Dean.”

Dean couldn’t stand it. He leaned in for one more kiss and then reached down to grab Cas’s hand. Hell, it wasn’t even awkward anymore. They did this every night. Well, sort of this. Almost this.

No, not really anything like this.

He led Cas through the quiet hallways to his room. Their room, really. It had been that way for weeks, or even months. Since Cas had started keeping his bunny slippers tucked under the side of Dean’s bed beside his own. There certainly was no denying it now.

With the door shut behind them, this time Cas didn’t need an excuse to stand far too close to Dean. He didn’t need an excuse to kick off his shoes and crawl onto the bed after Dean, or to lay down by his side. There was no pretense of researching a hunt, or watching a movie, or talking about anything and everything under the sun to avoid talking too close to _this_. He was there because Dean wanted him there; because Dean loved him too.

They lay atop the covers on their sides facing one another, fully clothed but for their shoes. It suddenly felt like there was a disappointingly large distance between them, despite being less than a foot apart. It had never really bothered Cas before. It had always felt like more than enough to just be invited to remain in Dean’s room every night. After the events of that afternoon and their activities in the kitchen, it was nowhere near enough anymore.

Cas stretched out his hand and laid it on Dean’s shoulder, where years ago he’d left behind his handprint seared into Dean’s skin, straight through to his soul. At the time it had been an accident, but now, if he’d still had the kind of power necessary to leave such a mark he’d do it willingly. Dean stared down at Cas’s hand on his shoulder with a look of amazement, and Cas had the feeling that Dean was thinking the same thing. Without realizing he’d done it, Cas made a small, pleased sound that snapped Dean’s attention back to his face.

Dean held his breath for a second, staring into Cas’s eyes. Cas held his gaze until Dean’s eyes flicked down to his mouth, and then Dean licked his lips. He wasn't sure who moved first, but in the next moment they’d closed the distance between them and were pressed as tightly together as they’d been in the kitchen.

Cas slid his hand around Dean’s back and clutched a handful of his shirt, pulling him as close as he could. Dean’s arm slid around his waist doing the same. Their mouths met again, unable to get enough of each other. Cas pushed ever closer, one knee sliding between Dean’s thighs, and he still wasn’t close enough. He could feel the heat of Dean’s body and the warm pulse of his soul inside, and he longed to be able to simply reach inside Dean to hold it in his hands again.

Dean’s hand slid up his back and he draped one leg around Cas’s hips, clamping him in place as if Dean longed to reach inside him in the same way.  Panting for air, Dean broke their kiss and began kissing his way down Cas’s neck. He stopped and made a disappointed growling sound when he reached the collar of Cas’s shirt and was forced to stop. He laid his head down on Cas’s shoulder, gulping for air.

“You’re gonna stay here tonight, right?”

“I stay here every night, Dean.”

Dean laughed and shook his head before leaning back enough to see his whole face. “I mean like this.” Dean flexed the muscles in the leg wrapped around Cas’s waist, tightening his grip and making Cas entirely aware of the fact that yes, they were both equally sexually aroused.

To answer his question, Cas nodded and slid his own leg even further between Dean’s, grinding their hips together yet again. This time he he was expecting the sensation and was more fully able to appreciate the feel of Dean’s erection pressed so close against his own. If only it weren’t for all those layers of cloth between them.

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”

Dean blinked up at him, studying him to spot any hint of a lie, and then nodded. “Good… that’s good.”

Dean reached down, wriggling in Cas’s grip just enough to pull off his t-shirt and toss it over the edge of the bed. Cas had lost his handhold, but it didn’t take long to decide it was far more preferable to lay his hands directly on Dean’s bare skin instead. It only took another minute of renewed kissing, running his hands over the warmth of Dean’s back before that was no longer enough and he pulled away to undo the buttons of his own shirt. If a little of Dean’s skin against his own was a good thing, then even more would be better.

With his shirt unbuttoned, Dean helped push it off his shoulders and down his arms. They didn’t bother tossing it off the bed. Their hands were too busy exploring each other to be bothered with it.

Dean pushed him gently onto his back, rolling on top of him and pressing him into the mattress with his weight. Once upon a time he’d mourned his falling to Earth, but now he pulled Dean down above him to keep him pinned there, for fear he’d float away otherwise. His hips rose off the bed of their own accord, and were met by Dean’s grinding back down. The next time Dean broke their kiss, he reached tentatively down toward Cas’s belt.

“Cas, can I?”

Cas nodded almost frantically. “Please.”

Dean dropped back down to give Cas a quick, hard kiss before sliding away. He only went far enough to straddle Cas’s thigh, sitting up to unfasten his belt buckle. None of it was happening quickly enough for Cas’s needs and he brushed Dean’s hands away to unbutton his own pants, practically bucking Dean off of him in his haste to push them down over his hips. Dean sat there watching him squirm for a moment, and then inched backward on his knees to the edge of the bed, slowly dragging Cas’s pants and boxers with him.

Dean stood at the foot of the bed, taking in the sight of Cas lying there, naked and flushed, staring impatiently back while Dean fumbled with the buttons on his own jeans. He stripped them off quickly, taking only a moment to give his cock a couple of teasing strokes before crawling back up between Cas’s legs. Cas gasped at the feel of Dean’s body settling atop his, the slide of their groins together as Dean rocked his hips down and dove in for another kiss.

In a matter of minutes they were gasping for air, and Dean rested his forehead against Cas’s without slowing down the rolling of their hips. Dean tried to move away, to kiss his way down Cas’s throat to his collarbone, or maybe even further, but Cas stopped him with a desperate cry and one hand clenched tight and tugging in Dean’s hair. He latched all his limbs around Dean and desperately kept them pressed together as the friction and warmth and feelings and Dean became almost too much to bear.

Dean practically sobbed out his name and buried his face in Cas’s shoulder but nothing could stop them now. A moment later Cas was coming with a cry of _Dean_ , and Dean followed him over the edge. Cas kept Dean bound there with his arms and legs for several long minutes afterward. Even when he released his grip, Dean only moved enough to gaze down at Cas. He leaned down for another kiss that lacked the fiery heat of their last kisses, but held all the promise of the enduring love Cas knew bubbled just below the surface. He returned it with an equal measure of his own love for Dean.

Eventually Dean reached behind him and grabbed Cas’s shirt to clean the mess off their stomachs. Cas had complained, but Dean promised to give him a clean shirt to put on in the morning.

“It’s about time you wore something else anyway. I’ve never known anyone so committed to a fashion statement as you.”

“I don’t have any need to change my clothes, Dean. It serves no purpose.”

Dean gave him a look with one raised eyebrow as he nudged Cas around until he got the two of them settled together to his liking under the blankets.

“Dude, you don’t need slippers either, but you didn’t let that stop you.”

Cas laughed, low and content, and held Dean tight. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am, as usual,” Dean replied, and then kissed him tenderly. “Love you, Cas.”

Cas kissed him back, one more time. “I love you too, Dean.”

“I hope it’s enough for the birds.”

Cas was about to tell him that it was too late, that there were already three hens comfortably settled out in the blanket nest in the library, but Dean had succumbed to sleep. He decided the birds could wait until morning, and followed Dean into his dreams instead.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean awoke in a cocoon of warmth with his face nuzzled down into the side of Cas’s neck. He only suffered through a brief moment of panic until his sleep-fuzzed mind remembered the events of the previous evening. He hadn’t somehow taken advantage of Cas’s proximity in his sleep to glom on to his angel. Cas had been a full and eager participant in… everything.

God, that was refreshing.

Dean nosed along the bolt of his jaw before placing a kiss just below Cas’s ear. Cas hummed out a low, pleased rumble and blinked his eyes open, turning to smile at Dean.

“Mornin’ sunshine.”

“Good morning, Dean.”

He couldn’t help but grin back, eagerly leaning in for a proper kiss. Things were just starting to heat up again when he finally heard it; a soft but persistent clucking echoing through the hallways outside their door. Dean groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, rolling over onto his back and then staring up at the ceiling.

“Cockblocked by actual cocks. How is this my life?”

“Technically they’re hens. Cocks would be the male of the species,” Cas informed him helpfully.

Dean rolled his head to the side so that he could roll his eyes at Cas.

“Whatever. We still gotta go deal with ‘em.”

Cas leaned up on one elbow and bent over to give him a kiss before shoving back the blankets and sitting up at the edge of the bed. Dean got up quickly after that, tossing Cas a clean blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans, because _you can’t wear a t-shirt with those dress pants, Cas. It’s ridiculous_.

Cas had just laughed at him. It's not as if there were anyone else in the bunker to impress with his clothing choices, but he put on the clothes Dean picked for him anyway.

Once they were dressed, Dean detoured to the kitchen.

“I need coffee before I can even think about facing what we’re gonna find in the library.”

“That sounds good,” Cas replied, wandering over to the pantry shelves while Dean set up the coffee maker. He’d been poring over the shelves for a minute or two by the time Dean noticed.

“You lookin’ for something specific, Cas?”

“I believe we have a bag of corn meal here. It’s not ideal, but it’s probably better than nothing.”

“You wanna make cornbread for breakfast or something?”

Cas shot Dean an amused look. “I thought you were hoping for fresh eggs for breakfast.”

Dean shrugged, and then grinned. “Eggs go good with cornbread.”

Cas found the small yellow package he’d been searching for and held it up to show Dean. “I don’t want the hens to starve to death. It only seems polite to offer them some breakfast, too.”

Dean stared at Cas for a moment, puzzled. “We didn’t feed the partridge or the doves, and they seem to be doing fine.”

“It only just occurred to me,” Cas replied. “Maybe because I’m feeling a little bit hungry myself this morning.”

Dean slid his hand across Cas’s lower back and around to his hip, pulling him in close. “Did you work up an appetite last night?”

Cas considered that with his usual degree of seriousness, and then answered. “I believe I may have.”

Dean had been teasing, mostly, but Cas’s matter-of-fact answer had caught him off guard.

“Is, uh… is that normal? I mean, you don’t usually need food at all, right?”

Cas shrugged, as if none of this were surprising to him in the least. “I didn’t used to need slippers, or a change of clothes, or sleep, either.”

“Is something…” Dean hesitated. He wasn’t sure if there was actually a polite way to even ask this, but this was Cas and he was worried. He needed to know. “Is something wrong with your grace? You’d tell me, right? If you were having problems.” He left the implied, “because of me,” off the end of his question but he was sure Cas had heard it anyway.

Cas turned and cupped Dean’s face with one hand, looking earnestly into his eyes. “I’ve allowed my grace to dissipate some. It started months ago, when I first started spending nights in your room. I’ve come to realize that what I want most is to be here, with you, Dean. To share your entire life with you. And this is the result. It’s what I want.”

Dean studied his face, looked into his eyes, and knew Cas was telling him the truth. It was just too big, too much. “But, you’re an angel. You can’t…”

Cas smiled a little sadly and shut Dean up with a quick kiss. “I can, and I am. I spent far too long holding on to it, to what I was, thinking it was the only way I could be useful to you; that it was the only reason you kept asking me to stay with you. But now I know better. I love you, Dean, and this is what I’ve always wanted. If… if you want me to stay with you, that is.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open in shock and he had to remind himself to keep breathing. “Yeah, Cas. Of course I want you to stay.”

Cas nodded and kissed him again. “Good.”

The coffee maker beeped and suddenly the rest of the world came rushing back to them. The same thought he’d had the night before returned with it. It probably _would_ take them another ten years to work their way through everything between them, but it would be worth it. Right now, though, they still had coffee to drink, chickens to deal with, and a spell to reverse.

Cas helped Dean tuck a chicken under each arm before picking up the third and carrying out the bag of cornmeal with his free hand. The pear tree had again doubled in size, and the partridge and turtle doves greeted them with a friendly warbling chorus of chirping. They set the hens down gently beneath the branches of the tree and Cas scattered a few handfuls of corn around on the ground. All six birds pecked happily at their breakfast while Dean and Cas watched on.

“You know, this really isn’t all that terrible of a curse,” Dean commented after a few minutes.

“That’s because it’s not supposed to be a curse, Dean. Love isn’t a curse. It’s a blessing.”

Dean reached out and grabbed hold of Cas’s hand. “So you wanna keep gettin’ blessed like this for nine more days?”

“With love? Absolutely,” Cas replied, squeezing Dean’s hand. “With birds? It’s probably less practical.”

They watched as one dove flapped its way back to its usual branch, followed a moment later by its mate.

“I wonder if they’re gonna disappear if we figure out how to break the spell.”

“It’s possible. Or they might vanish after the twelfth day regardless,” Cas replied.

“Huh. I think I might miss ‘em. Not that I think we need any more. But this is kinda nice. What if we don’t wanna give ‘em back?”

“Hmmm.”

“What?” Dean asked. “What’s with the hmmm?”

“Give them back, you said. Maybe that’s how we end the spell.”

“Give what back? Because ain’t no way I’m trading this back,” Dean said, holding up their joined hands.

“No, Dean. The parchment. You gave it to me. Maybe if I give it back to you, acknowledging and reciprocating the act that triggered the spell, it will stop.”

Dean stared at Cas for a second, thinking over his suggestion. “Or maybe we just end up with twice as many fucking birds.”

Cas shrugged, waving his free hand at the birds and the pear tree they’d already collected. “At this point it might be worth a try.”

A dozen borderline-disturbing thoughts flashed through his mind before Dean finally relented.

“Fine,” he said, pointing at Cas. “But if we wake up to another fucking tree in the library, we’re hanging Christmas lights on it. We are not hauling another damn tree up those stairs.”

“I can live with that,” Cas replied, giving Dean’s hand a tug and leading him back inside.

They went directly back to the parchment, still sitting on the side table where they’d left it after Dean framed it. Cas let go of Dean’s hand and picked up the frame. He flipped it over, removed the cardboard backing and slid the parchment out while Dean watched.

“If this works, we should make a notation both in the reference book as well as on the parchment itself,” Cas said while he worked. “In case anyone else is ever unfortunate enough to accidentally run across it.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, unless they’re interested in starting a farm-themed marching band or some shit.”

Cas looked at him, confused for a moment, and Dean rolled his eyes.

“We didn’t get past the birds yet, but what the fuck are we supposed to do when the drummers and pipers and dancing ladies and shit start showing up?”

“You have a point,” Cas conceded. “I sincerely hope this works, then.”

He held out the parchment, and Dean only hesitated for a second before accepting it. Unlike the last time, there was no spark of electricity, no blue light; nothing to let them know if they’d broken the spell or not.

Cas stood there for a moment while Dean held the page, waiting for something to happen. When nothing continued happening, Dean shrugged and offered the page back to Cas. He held up his hands and took a quick few steps away from Dean as if Dean had offered him a live grenade instead of an old sheet of paper.

“I think it would be wise to avoid passing it directly from person to person from now on, just in case,” he suggested. “Would you mind setting it on the table? I’d like to copy the original spell and the results of our experiment onto the back before we frame it again.”

Dean made a considering face and then did exactly as Cas had requested.

“You think we’re gettin’ four calling birds tomorrow?”

Dean pulled out the chair next to Cas’s and watched him copy out the text from the book in careful lettering, leaving room at the bottom to document their findings.

“Depending on the age of the spell and the version of the poem that the person who originally cast it was familiar with, it’s possible we might wind up with colly birds, or even canaries.”

“Huh. Well, I know what a canary is, but what the fuck’s a colly bird? And how the hell do you even know that”

“A blackbird.” Castiel looked up from his work and frowned at Dean. “Metatron seems to have had a special fondness for Christmas themed stories, despite his complete lack of understanding it from the human perspective. He read at least six different versions of the original poem.”

Dean’s eyes widened at this. “So we might be in for worse than cows and leaping lords?”

Cas shrugged, leaning back in his chair and grinning at Dean. “One version involves bears.”

“Bears?”

Cas just nodded.

“Other variations mention bulls, asses, sailing ships, badgers…”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Dean cut him off, running one hand down his face. “We’ll worry about bears and the rest of it if we have to. Right now, we need breakfast.”

Cas turned in his chair to examine the blanket nest where they’d found the chickens that morning. “I’m sorry to say that we won’t be having fresh eggs.”

 

With nothing more they could do about the spell until the next morning, they spent the rest of the day strategically hanging mistletoe throughout the bunker and thoroughly testing it out. Sam called in the early afternoon to report that they’d made a break in their case. They’d tracked down a coven of witches who’d been trying to rein in a rogue member. By day she owned a hair salon that had been losing business to a new beauty school that had opened in town. She’d been raising spirits to torment her clients who’d deserted her in favor of the discounted services at the school.

“Three people are dead because she was pissed they were getting cheap haircuts behind her back? What the fuck is even wrong with people?”

Sam sighed. “I have no idea, Dean, but the rest of the coven has bent over backwards to help us find her. They mostly use what little magic they’ve got to keep their gardens healthy. They’re a bunch of kitchen witches, midwives, and healers, and they’re disgusted their former friend turned to necromancy. There’s probably a demon involved in this somewhere, because she never had the kind of power raising spirits like this would take. Even if we get to her, we might not be able to take out the demon she dealt with.”

“I can call Crowley and ask him if he knows what’s up,” Dean offered, and rolled his eyes when Cas scowled at him for making the suggestion.

“Nah,” Sam replied. “Not necessary. The rest of the coven’s innocent here. If it’s just this one witch who went bad, the demon’s probably already skipped town.”

Dean made a tutting noise and sighed. “Yeah, but you should still let Crowley know. It makes him feel important when he knows what all his minions are up to.”

Even Cas laughed at that.

“We’re heading out now to look for her, but if we get her tonight, we’ll probably start for home in the morning.”

“I guess mom and Eileen are getting along, then?”

Sam groaned. “You have no idea. Mom keeps saying how she always wanted a sister. And she’s learning sign language like it’s her sole mission on this planet. And they’re _doing things_ together, Dean! They went and had their hair done at that beauty school. They said it was for _research_.”

“At least you didn’t let them drag you off to get your head shaved.”

Sam sounded haunted when he replied, “It was a near thing.”

After Dean hung up, Cas stared thoughtfully at the phone in Dean’s hand for a moment before frowning up at Dean.

“You didn’t tell him about us,” Cas said quietly.

Dean shook his head and then leaned in for a kiss. “This is _not_ the kind of thing you tell someone about over the phone.”

“Are you worried how he might react?”

“No,” Dean replied a little too quickly. “Not really, anyway. I just… after all these years, I think we need to do this face to face. And maybe _after_ we know what’s up with the spell.”

Cas regarded Dean for another minute and then nodded. “You don’t want Sam to think we’re behaving abnormally due to the effects of a spell.”

Dean shrugged. “That’s part of it. I need him to be able to see for himself that this is real.”

Cas smiled at that and then practically climbed into Dean’s lap to kiss him again.

They shared a quiet dinner before retiring to their room to watch a movie with the intention of distracting themselves from worrying about whether or not the spell had been broken. Dean had asked Cas if he felt anything different, but Cas hadn’t been sure if the absence of the magic was due to the spell breaking or his grace fading to the point where he could no longer detect it. Dean didn’t find either of those options comforting, and Cas didn’t have any qualms with helping Dean feel more comfortable about everything in general. They ended up abandoning their movie for much more distracting activities.

The following morning when they finally made it out of their room, their first order of business was a quick check of the library for any new avian additions.

“I don’t hear any canaries,” Dean said as they rounded the corner.

“I don’t sense any either,” Cas replied, moments before their senses were validated.

“Nothing in the library but the books,” Dean said, bending over to scoop up the empty nesting blanket. “Just the way I like it.”

Cas spent a few minutes annotating the parchment and the book describing the spell while Dean set off to start coffee and throw the blanket in the laundry. When Dean returned, both Cas and the parchment were no longer in the library. After everything that parchment had put them through, his first instinct was to worry.

“Cas?” he called out. “Cas? Where are you?”

Before he got an answer, the phone in his pocket buzzed. He pulled it out to read the message while he stalked off in search of Cas. He only got a few paces before he noticed that the message was from Cas. It was a photograph of the dresser in their room, with the framed parchment sitting atop it. He was still smiling down at the picture when Cas’s next message buzzed through.

“I hope you don’t mind, but this seemed like an appropriate place to store this dangerous artifact.”

Dean grinned and replied to the text as he reversed direction and headed back to the kitchen. “Agreed. Now meet me in the kitchen for coffee u dork.”


	6. Chapter 6

Mary, Sam and Eileen arrived back at the bunker very late the following night. It had been a long hunt and a longer drive. Dean and Cas had mutually agreed to wait until everyone was rested and fed before announcing the change in their relationship status. Trying to explain the entire thing to their still road-weary family Saturday morning, even after an entire pot of coffee, still didn’t go as smoothly as they’d hoped.

“So you got hit with some kind of love spell?” Mary asked, looking slightly guilty for having been the one to dig the parchment out of storage in the first place.

“No, not a love spell,” Cas clarified. “More like a love _detection_ spell.”

That had Mary _aww_ ing and Sam grinning like a loon, to the point where Dean cut him off before he could even open his mouth to make some mushy dumb comment about their gross love.

“Just be glad we figured out how to break the spell, or you’d be helping us carry a bunch of geese outside to add to the weird bird collection we’ve got going.”

“You mean you didn’t even let it go long enough to collect your five golden rings?” Eileen said with a smirk.

Dean just shrugged, but Cas replied, “We were more concerned about preventing the sudden appearance of badgers and bears and asses in the library.”

“Asses?” Sam replied while fighting to maintain a straight face. “I’m sure that’s been a major concern of Dean’s for years.”

“Ha fucking ha.” Dean picked up his mug and stomped off to the sink to get started on the dishes.

Cas joined him a moment later with the remaining breakfast dishes. He set them on the counter and then pulled Dean’s face toward him so he could plant a loud, smacking kiss on his mouth. He leaned back and took in Dean’s blushing, stunned face and pointed up at the sprig of mistletoe hanging above them.

“Nope,” Dean said. “Definitely not cursed.”

“I think maybe we are,” Sam muttered, looking away from the lovebirds.

Mary muttered back, “I know I asked for Christmas decorations for my birthday, but maybe we can get rid of some of the mistletoe.”

“We’re not getting rid of the mistletoe,” Dean replied. “It was your idea anyway, mom. It was on the list.”

Cas shrugged and reassured Dean. “It wouldn’t matter if they did.”

Mary, Sam, and Eileen took that as their cue to find somewhere else to be. Eileen grabbed the little sack of cornmeal and signed something at Cas before heading outside to feed the birds.

“What did she say?” Dean asked.

“She said, ‘it’s a Christmas miracle.’”

“It is,” Dean agreed, and kissed him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Wintertime Holiday Of Your Choice! Thanks for reading. I can be found at [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com)
> 
> To go directly to it, here's a link to the [promo post on tumblr](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154645676400/the-twelve-days-or-is-it-years-of-christmas-by). :)
> 
> Also, you can't even begin to imagine the restraint it took not to ironically tag this "using your words."


End file.
